


I've Always Had Your Back

by MaeveBran



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 18:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3579138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveBran/pseuds/MaeveBran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Paige interrupts her parents, Philip and Elizabeth have a heart to heart conversation. (missing scene sort of fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Always Had Your Back

Philip and Elizabeth walked into the house silently and paid Abby. After the sitter left, Philip and Elizabeth made their way just as silently up to their bedroom. He gathered her in his arms and kissed her. She returned it with a passion that had only briefly been there. Before. Before he fucked up. Before she had been shot. Before Gregory had revealed the long affair. The passion had been new and fragile and the events of months ago had nearly destroyed it, but the long months of her recuperation had fanned it back to life. They hadn't had much time to talk, and they would have to soon, but they'd had plenty of time to think.

Elizabeth, in particular, had months with nothing much else to do but think. She thought of her affair with Gregory and how that had hurt Philip and how he'd moved past it. So why was she so hurt by his one night with Irina? She eventually figured it out. She had finally fallen in love with her husband and to know he'd gone and slept with the woman he'd admitted to loving, before they had met, was beyond what she could stand. Elizabeth could stand the idea of Clark and Martha because that was the mission and because she assumed it was very simple sex. Martha was so quiet and retiring that anything more than the missionary position would be frightening. She gave a little shake of her head to get that image out of her mind.

She turned around as Philip shut the door silently behind him. He walked to her and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around him and deepened the kiss. Soon clothes were flying and they were falling naked onto the bed. By mutual desire and unspoken communication they ended up mutually orally pleasuring each other.

The door opened and Elizabeth looked up at the noise. She met the eyes of their extremely embarrassed daughter. Philip twisted to see what was wrong, just in time to see Paige close the door and flee down the hall.

“Damn it,” Philip said as they sat up and leaned against the headboard.

“That is certainly a mood killer,” Elizabeth agreed as she crawled under the covers.

They lay side by side, not speaking for awhile. He reached out a hand and took hers. She curled her fingers around his. She had missed him in the months she recuperated.

“I missed you,” she said.

“I missed you too,” he agreed.

“Not just these last few months,” she tried to explain.

“I missed you from the day I moved out,” he said. “I fucked up. I know it. I never got to say I'm sorry, so I'm saying it now.”

“I know,” she said. “They told me you wouldn't leave my side until after I regained consciousness.”

“I couldn't,” he said. “You were bleeding out and I couldn't let you go. I helped the surgeon...”

“They didn't tell me that,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“I had to do everything to save you,” he said. “I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you. You're my partner. And my wife.”

Elizabeth scooted closer to him and curled up to his side. She lay an arm across his chest and pillowed her head on his arm.

“I had a lot of time to think, these last few months,” Elizabeth started to say.

“As have I,” Philip said.

“And I realized that what you did,” she said, looking up at him. “Was no worse than what I did with Gregory. Each of us has fucked up. We need to start over from here.”

“I can do that,” he agreed looking down into her eyes. “But first, I want to explain, and then we need never mention it again.”

“All right,” she said as she looked away from him.

“The first time we met,” he began. “I could tell you were disappointed I was not someone else. I don't know who you were hoping for but it wasn't me. I understood the feeling. I had been seeing Irina for a couple years and after the training I was hoping to be assigned to her or be able to propose to her. But when Zhukov called me into his office that day, I knew that wouldn't be possible. I had her picture with me in the waiting room that day. The moment I heard Zhukov's steps coming for me, I tore up that photo and tossed it in a nearby garbage can.” He reached out and tilted her face to look in her eyes. “From the moment I tore up that photo until New York, I put Irina out of my mind. There was only you.”

“What changed in New York?” Elizabeth asked.

“She showed me a picture of her son and told me he was mine too,” Philip answered. “She called me Mischa and talked about the soldier who was my son. Suddenly the old feelings came back, But when you called, I realized that those were just the memories of feelings and not the real thing. I had the real thing with you and I knew the difference.”

“Why didn't you explain it like that,” she asked. “When I asked you about New York.”

“I don't know,” Philip said. “I didn't really have much time to think about it until I moved out. Then I had nothing but time to think.” He used his other hand to brush back her hair and cupped the side of her face. “I thought of you, our family, and our life and knew I need you. At my side not just to have my back.”

“I've always had your back,” she said. “Always will.”

“I know,” he said. “And I yours.”

Elizabeth leans over and kisses him. One kiss turns into several and then she straddling him. They connect in the most basic and primal way, showing their pent up feelings for each other. In a strange way, the months apart has done them some good. Now they can move forward, as partners in all ways.


End file.
